Thursday, July 05, 2012

Yesterday I tried a new recipe. I knew I wanted to make something for dinner, and I had just gone out and bought a LOT of produce from our local farmer's market, so the question wasn't so much WHAT I could make but more WHICH recipe I should try. I ended up making a healthy pizza using cauliflower in the crust.

(Note: the above pictures are from the website where I got the recipe; they are NOT pictures of the pizzas I made!)

It was pretty easy to make although I did struggle a bit trying to "rice" the cauliflower using my hand blender instead of a regular blender as is suggested. The cauliflower also smelled a little weird to me when I heated and mashed it up, but once it's in the crust with the other ingredients it's fine. Note: There was nothing wrong with the cauliflower, I just didn't like the smell of it when it was heated.

Once cooked, the pizza was pretty good and I had about 6 (small) slices. I made two irregularly-shaped pizzas and did not cut each slice the same size so it's hard to compare to a regular pizza. I will say that this crust is not as stable as regular pizza crust made with flour (white or wheat). You had to support the whole slice as you ate it. I would also recommend making sure that the crust is a consistent thickness from edge to middle and then is completely cooked through so that you aren't left with a slightly soggy center as I was with my first pie. Overall, I would give this recipe a B+

My other "product review" (some might say) is for "Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition: The Workout" dvd. I saw this dvd at Walmart when I was browsing the fitness section and, being a fan of the show and liking Chris Powell pretty well, I decided to give it a try. It has three (3) levels to it. Well, I should have suspected that it would be geared towards the ABSOLUTE, UBER beginner given the types of people Chris works with on the show. The level 1 workout is definitely meant for someone who is extremely out-of-shape and/or obese as the exercises are very slow and gentle. I'm not saying this is a bad thing! Not at all! I think it's great! But it was too easy for me. So I ended up doing a Biggest Loser workout (from the 30-Day Jump Start dvd) afterwards to make sure I got my heart rate up enough to burn some calories.

Today I skipped level 2 and went straight to level 3 of the EM Weight Loss Edition dvd and that was more appropriate for me. I still had to modify a few of the moves, like the jumping jacks (because I can't actually JUMP with my knee and back issues) and the pushups (because I'm a weakling with NO upper body strength), but it was a decent workout. Definitely not as hard as the BL or Jillian workouts, but I didn't feel the need to do another workout afterwards as I did with level 1. However, I didn't feel like I COUDLN'T MOVE ANOTHER MUSCLE like I feel after a BL or Jillian workout!

So I would highly recommend this dvd for someone who needs to start at a super-easy level and needs a lot of encouragement (Chris Powell is SO nice and encouraging the whole way; that's one of the reasons why I like watching the show so much). If you like workouts more like the Biggest Loser or Jillian Michaels series then I'd say pass on this one. I'll probably keep mine to maybe use level 3 again someday if I don't feel up to something more challenging.

What workout videos do you guys like to use? So far I've been pleased with the Biggest Loser series (though some will have to wait a little while until I'm in slightly better shape; same with some of the Jillian Michaels dvds). I also happen to currently be obsessed with the show (I'm watching the entire series from start to finish, as I'd never seen it before).